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Last update - 17:22 21/05/2009
Egypt tycoon sentenced to death over Lebanon diva killing
By The Associated Press
Tags: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, Lebanon 

A real estate mogul with ties to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son was sentenced to death Thursday for ordering the killing of a Lebanese pop star who had been his lover.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, was accused of paying a former Egyptian State Security officer $2 million to kill Suzanne Tamim in Dubai.

The green-eyed diva, who was 30 at the time of her death last July, rose to stardom in the late 1990s drawing huge audiences with her sultry dancing and cascading chestnut hair.
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But she hit troubled times, separating from her Lebanese husband-manager who filed a series of lawsuits against her.

Moustafa, who is married, and Tamim, were lovers before the relationship soured.

The case - a sensational tale of a jilted lover out for revenge after spending millions of dollars on his mistress - in the eyes of many Egyptians served as a litmus test for the notion that the country's elite are above the law. It attracted a media frenzy.

The former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also convicted and sentenced to death in a court session that quickly turned chaotic as police and Moustafa's relatives clashed with reporters scrambling for a reaction from the defendants to the verdict.

Moustafa's two daughters burst into tears after the verdict, and his sister fainted.

"This verdict is cruel," Sameer el-Shishtawi, one of Moustafa's lawyers told reporters outside the southern Cairo court. He said he would appeal, and was confident the verdict would be overturned.

In Tamim's Aisha Bakkar middle-class Muslim district of Beirut, a picture of the slain singer still hangs above the door of the family's ground floor residence.

Najib Liyan, who identified himself as the family's lawyer, said he was grateful for the verdict.

"We had no doubt about justice," Liyan said. "Still," he added, "no one can be happy about death, whether it is a crime or a death sentence."

Both Mousatafa and el-Sukkary had pleaded not guilty to the charges. The death sentence must still be certified by the government's top religious official, the Grand Mufti. The defendants can appeal the ruling within 60 days of the mufti's decision effectively after June 25, a date set by the judge.

Tamim's murder, and leaked images of her lying dead, her throat slashed, dominated headlines across the Middle East.

Everything about the case was high-profile and, as common in the Middle East, political overtones crept into what would have otherwise been a common, albeit particularly grisly, crime.

Authorities maintain Moustafa paid el-Sukkary, who worked for the tycoon at one of the Four Seasons hotels he owned in Egypt, to kill Tamim while she was staying in a luxury apartment in Dubai. Her friends have said she moved to London then Dubai after ending the relationship with Moustafa.

Egypt declined to extradite Moustafa to the United Arab Emirates, insisting he be tried at home in a move initially read by many Egyptians as opening the door for the constriction mogul to skate with a symbolic sentence.

But as details of the crime emerge and details of the evidence were revealed, increasing media frenzy prompted the judge to impose a gag order and to close most of the 27 trial sessions to the public. Fueling the excitement were Moustafa's ties to Gamal Mubarak, who is often touted as his father's successor. Moustafa, a member of parliament's upper house, the Shura Council, was also a member the NDP's influential policies committee, which the younger Mubarak chairs.

At the trial, authorities pointed to security footage of El-Sukkary in Dubai, blood-soaked clothes that were found dumped outside the building and the knife he used to slash Tamim's throat as evidence.

Moustafa's trial marked the demise of one of the country's most prominent businessmen. Since his arrest on in September, his brother Tarek Moustafa - who heads the lower house of parliament's housing committee - took over as the company's chief executive.

Over the past decade, Talaat Moustafa became one of Egypt's wealthiest men, building a real estate empire that included luxury hotels and resorts. He was also a leading force behind the rise of the pricey Western-style suburbs that ring Cairo.

Shares of Talaat Moustafa Group were down about 14.5 percent on the Egyptian stock exchange, trading at 4.22 Egyptian pounds by midday.

From his prison cell in one of Egypt's largest prisons, Moustafa wrote in a letter published last September in Akhbar al-Youm newspaper that enemies of success were fabricating a case against him.

"Knives have been sharpened, tearing at my flesh," Moustafa wrote. "But these lies will not be able to move the great pyramids I have constructed in the Egyptian economy."

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